Taco Joint

Living with two other foodies has made moving back to Chicago quite the adventure. We've been revisiting several of my favorite places and trying out as many new restaurants as possible. One of our new favorites for delivery/carry out is Taco Joint. I have yet to try a single thing off the menu that was not amazingly delicious, and overall the prices are very reasonable. (We're talking $2-$3 per taco, and each taco is fairly large and VERY filling! Though be prepared to pay a $5 delivery fee if you go that route.) 

I wish I had some of my own pictures to show you, but truth be told carry out containers aren't always the most appealing visual presentation, and that would also require us not digging in the second we get them open. Yeah, it's that good. I'll have to let a few pictures I've pulled from the web suffice for now.

 

Source: POPSUGAR

Some of our favorites:

Arabe ($3): Grilled Puebla style Lebanese influenced taco with marinated pork loin and chipotle salsa; served on a Mexican style pita

Estilo Baja ($3): Victoria Beer battered tilapia garnished with a creamy-arbol cabbage slaw

Tinga ($2): Marinated shredded chicken garnished with red cabbage and “guaca-salsa”

Queso Fundido ($7): Melted Chihuahua cheese, roasted poblano strips and choice of homemade chorizo or sautéed mushrooms

And of course, we would whole-heartedly recommend ALL of the guacamole options. What can I say, we're really into guac. Each one comes with corn, sweet plantain, and malanga chips.  

For those dining in, Taco Joint also has over 50 tequilas and a menu full of margarita options. We will absolutely be trying the in-restaurant dining experience in the near future to try some of those out!

Taco Joint is located in Lincoln Park at 1969 N. Halsted in Chicago, right off of W. Armitage Avenue.

Visit their website for menus and hours.

Peanut Butter Chicken

You know that crispy peanut butter chicken you can often find on Chinese buffet tables? This is it. Or... a very close approximation of how to make it yourself.

 (Recipe adapted from this one)

Ingredients

1.5 lbs boneless chicken cutlets

3/4 cup milk

3 Tbsp. creamy peanut butter (or maybe a little more)

1 egg

Salt and pepper

Approximately 2-3 cups crushed Corn Flakes

Vegetable/Canola Oil

For Sauce

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (or maybe a little more)

3 Tbsp. soy sauce

3 Tbsp. brown sugar

3/4 cup water (can reduce or adjust to get the thickness desired)

Drizzle of honey

Whisk together the milk, 3 tbsp of creamy peanut butter, and egg. Sprinkle in a few dashes of salt and pepper. Soak your chicken in this mixture for a few minutes while you get any other prep done (I did this while getting the carrots and broccoli ready to steam and starting the rice). 

While chicken is soaking, put all sauce ingredients in a glass measuring cup or other microwavable container. You might want to start with 1/2 cup of water and add more later to reach your desired consistency. Microwave this mixture for 30 seconds and then whisk to thoroughly combine. Microwave another 30 seconds until hot. At this point you can add more water if necessary to make the mixture a little thinner. This can be done ahead of time and just reheated when the rest of the meal is ready.

Coat soaked chicken pieces in Corn Flakes and cook in oil, flipping once, until browned on both sides and cooked through.

Serve with rice & veggies of your choice and drizzle with peanut butter sauce. ENJOY!

Dinner at Madeleine's

Saturday was my 23rd birthday, and my go to spot for birthday dinners in Evansville, IN is a fusion restaurant called Madeleine's. The menu changes monthly, and I have yet to go and try something that wasn't amazingly delicious. 

 Avocado and Crab Salad appetizer

 Duroc Pork Chop with Dijon Mushroom Sauce, Hericot Verts, and Roasted Fingerling Potatoes

You can check out Madeleine's and their current menu by visiting their website (here). The menu they have up now is for the most part what they had this weekend, with a few minor changes. In a town with minimal fine dining options, this place is likely to continue being a favorite in our family.

(Note: Both the appetizer and entree I tried were changes on the menu, and I wish I could remember what the aioli was on top of the Avocado and Crab Salad because it was DELICIOUS!)

Harvest of Louisville

Last weekend I went down on an overnight trip to Louisville with my parents to look at apartments for my dad while he is working there. On Friday we went to lunch at Harvest, a locally grown restaurant, on East Market street. I'm always a little turned off when a restaurant has a very small menu, especially when the choices seem to be a little out of the ordinary, but this turned out to be DELICIOUS. 

We all got the burger either with different toppings or different sides, and it was one of the most amazing burgers I have ever had. It is served on a pretzel bun with chevre, lettuce, and bacon jam (pretty much just bacon). I chose the herb dijon potato salad as a side, and it might have been the best potato salad I've ever had. I would definitely recommend checking it out if you're ever in town and looking for a new place to try. I know I'll be back on what I'm sure will be many trips to come. 

You can check out Harvest and their menu here.

Raspberry Chocolate Cupcakes

I was looking for a new cake recipe to make for a friend I'm visiting this weekend who just celebrated her birthday. I wanted to do a chocolate base and started browsing through recipes incorporation various fruits. I came across this recipe from Taste of Home and originally wanted to make it in a smaller version but was not able to find smaller pans and decided to alter it a little for cupcakes.

The recipe, when made into cupcakes, will make approximately 36+ regular sized cupcakes. I will be passing these along to everyone from the birthday girl to my little brother and his dorm friends!

Ingredients

Cake
3 Cups Sugar
2 and 3/4 Cups All Purpose Flour
1 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa
2 teaspoons Baking Soda
1 and 1/2 teaspoons Salt
3/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 and 1/4 Cups Buttermilk
3/4 Cup Canola Oil
3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
3 Eggs
1 and 1/2 Cups Strong Brewed Coffee (room temperature)

Frosting
8 Ounces Low Fat Cream Cheese
1/3 Cup Butter (softened)
1/3 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa
2 or 3 Tablespoons Black Raspberry Liquer*
Approximately 4 Cups Confectioners Sugar**
1 teaspoon Hot Pink Gel Food Coloring (optional)

(*the original calls for Raspberry Liquer, I had black on hand. I also added quite a bit more than the original recipe so the flavor would really stand out)
(**more or less may be needed... add a cup at a time until you reach your desired consistency)

Extras
4 Ounces Semisweet Chocolate: melt in microwave safe bowl and pipe into shapes on wax paper with a frosting bag/small tip. Allow to cool and harden.
(It helps to throw them in the freezer after they are mostly hardened.)
Red or Black Raspberries for topping

"In a large bowl, combine the first six ingredients. Combine the buttermilk, oil and vanilla; add to the dry ingredients. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition; beat for 2 minutes. Gradually add coffee (batter will be thin)."

Pour batter into cupcake liners, about 2/3 full, and bake for approximately 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Cupcakes are done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

If you are doing the chocolate decorations, now is a good time to do them to give them time to harden while you let the cupcakes bake and get the icing ready.

In a medium to large bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add in cocoa and raspberry liqueur. Beat in one cup of powdered sugar at a time until frosting has reached desired consistency. If it gets too thick, add a SMALL amount of milk to loosen it up.

After it is mixed to your preferred consistency, add any food coloring. It took quite a bit of the pink gel food coloring to really give it a deep pink color with the chocolate (despite reducing the cocoa amount), but I think purple would show up even better. Frost cupcakes as desired and add chocolate toppings and raspberries.

ENJOY!

St. Patrick's Cupcakes

I've been a nanny the last few months for a family with 3, 6, and 9 year olds. I'm always looking for new ideas for crafts and activities to do with them, and thought decorating green cupcakes would be fun for St. Patrick's Day. I baked them prior to the older kids getting home from school (This time I just added green food coloring to a regular yellow boxed cake mix) and got all of the sprinkles, icings, and decorating gel ready while the younger one was napping.







The kids loved the decorating even more than getting to eat the cupcakes! I decorated a few along with them to give them some ideas, but they did a great job coming up with their own as well. This is a great activity for kids of any age and can easily be customized to different holidays with different food colorings and decorating supplies!

Rolo Stuffed Cookies

This is kind of a SUPER belated Super Bowl food post. But more importantly it's also a post in which I am going to pass along a DELICIOUS cookie recipe to you from Sarah over at West Coast Wife Life. Behold: the Rolo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Oh yeah, they're as delicious as they sound. I recommend making them immediately. They're totally worth unwrapping 50 individual Rolos by hand. (Or maybe there's some place you can buy them already unwrapped, but if there is I missed that one.)

You can find Sarah's recipe for these little babies by clicking here.

The rest of the Super Bowl food lineup included the usual suspects: Guacamole, Sausage Cheese Dip, Grilled Wings, Mini Pigs in Blankets, a plethora of assorted chips, and my dad's Pork Chili. Oh... and the Better than Crack Brownies. Not sure how those slipped my mind for the initial list. If you're a veteran reader of this blog (or How Sweet It Is) you know how addictively good THOSE are.




Lily ate a little bit of everything but I think it was pretty clear to everyone that the Doritos were her favorite part.

Ok but seriously, go make those Rolo cookies now.

Everyone Needs This....

Do you have something that looks like this? No? You should.

This meat mallet/tenderizer is my new favorite thing. I've used it plenty of times before, but I've recently discovered the difference it makes with chicken. If you use the flat side to pound the absolute hell out of a chicken breast before cooking it (whether baking, pan searing, whatever) it makes it SO TENDER AND SOFT.

Seriously, do it. Just spread your chicken between saran wrap and beat the hell out of it until it's the desired thickness for whatever you're making. You'll thank me later.

Food Inspiration

I happen to believe that a grilled cheese sandwich made with sour dough bread is about as good as a grilled cheese sandwich is going to get. Clearly it can get even better:

Caprese Grilled Cheese from Yammie's Noshery


I'm going to need to make that, REAL soon.

Hello, Sweet Tooth

Don't get me wrong, I love most things dessert related, but I just don't have the world's biggest sweet tooth. When I do get cravings for sweets they're usually random and easily taken care of with as much as a bite of chocolate. Tonight, however, I've been looking through FoodGawker and I have never before encountered SO MANY good looking dessert recipes. Maybe more specifically so many chocolate-based-recipes. You would think that Triple Chocolate Gelato this afternoon would have settled my chocolate cravings for at least a week...

But really, it would be rude of me to not share these with you.

 

Peppermint Mocha Cupcakes from Bakers Royale

 (Yep, like the Starbucks drink. Only, I don't like my coffee to be THAT sweet. My cupcakes? Definitely.)

 Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes from See Brooke Cook

("Mmmm Bailey's... creamay!" This one just looks so cute and classy. And what you probably don't know is that there is a little chocolate ganache baby hiding in there. You can't ever go wrong with chocolate ganache.)

 Drinking Chocolate from Fields of Cake

(Does anyone else remember when Starbucks had this stuff for a brief period of time? You don't need anymore than a shot glass sized amount but it is SO GOOD.)

 

 Salted Caramel Chocolate Mug Cake from The Family Kitchen

(Whoa, what? 2 minute cake? If that's not good for random sweet tooth cravings I don't know what is.)

 

 Crispy Chocolate Peanut Butter French Toast from... big surprise, How Sweet It Is

(I should have known the second I saw this it had her name written all over it. Yum.)

 Chocolate Pretzel Pie from Tidy Mom

(I will be making this for Thanksgiving festivities... assuming I can wait until then!)

Sorry if your mouth is now watering. I should know better than to look at FoodGawker any time other than right after a much-too-large meal has been consumed. I think I have said this before but really, it's about as smart as going to the grocery store on an empty stomach and without a list. 

And yes... I did just reference Old Greg up there.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache and Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting

These were a BIG hit and might just be one of the best cupcake recipes I've ever made. I found the frosting recipe here on Cooking Classy, but I wanted to use a different recipe for the cupcakes that didn't use buttermilk or applesauce, which I didn't have at home. I'm not a big Martha Stewart fan, but I have to give it to her that this pumpkin cupcake recipe was DELICIOUS.

The overall process is a little time consuming, though you can do things simultaneously... such as making the frosting while the cupcakes are baking. I don't recommend making the ganache until all cupcakes are out of the oven and cooling because it needs to be put on right after making it.

Cupcake Ingredients and Recipe

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice; set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in pumpkin puree.
3. Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about halfway. Bake until tops spring back when touched, and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pans once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.

(While the cupcakes were cooling, I poked some holes in the top with a chopstick to help them cool and also allow a little space for the ganache to get into the cupcake.)

Ganache Ingredients and Recipe

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Original directions: "Place chocolate chips in a medium mixing bowl, set aside. In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring whipping cream just to a boil. Pour hot cream over chocolate chips and whisk until smooth. Spoon 1 tsp ganache over each cooled cupcake and spread near edges, allow to cool. Meanwhile make spiced cream cheese frosting."

(I always do ganache in a glass bowl set on top of a pan with boiling water that does not touch the bowl's bottom. Just put the chocolate chips in and when they start to melt, add the cream and stir frequently until everything is melted and combined. I then transferred it all into a measuring cup to easily pour onto each cupcake immediately.)

Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg

"In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, whip together cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add vanilla, salt, powdered sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg and whip until smooth and fluffy. Pipe cream cheese frosting over cooled chocolate ganache covered cupcakes."

If you don't have any fancy piping equipment, it's ok! I have a set of the plastic cake frosting tips you can just buy in a 4-pack from the store in the baking aisle (they're intended for those tubes of frosting you can buy) and I cut a hole in the corner of a Hefty ziplock bag and wedge the tip in. Start with a smaller hole and cut more as necessary, you want to try to make it airtight.

I sprinkled some cinnamon over the cupcakes afterwards as a little bit of a garnish, though the original frosting recipe used chopped pecans.

ENJOY!

Lemon Pepper Crusted Chicken

First, let me apologize for the fact that there's only one picture, and that it was taken with the camera on my phone. I'm not going to lie, I've been looking forward to trying this ever since someone mentioned a similar recipe on Twitter a few days ago. Waiting around for a food photo shoot was the last thing I wanted to do when this was plated and ready to be eaten.

Furthermore, I don't think I can quite get across how easy this recipe is. Chances are you probably have half of the stuff to make it already in your house, too. This recipe serves two but can easily be multiplied to however many you need... it's another one of those where the amount of each ingredient doesn't really matter.

Ingredients
2 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
Approximately a half cup of Mayonnaise
Grated Parmesan Cheese
Spices of your choice- I went with garlic powder and chilli powder
Panko Lemon Pepper Bread Crumbs

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

If your chicken breasts are thick, pound them out a little. I didn't have a meat pounder (I'm sure that's the official term...) at our apartment in Chicago so I just kind of hit them a bunch with the bottom of my fist while they were still in their package.
(Who says you need classy tools to cook!?)

Mix mayo, some grated parmesan cheese, and a hefty sprinkling of garlic and chilli powder together. Sorry these aren't more official terms, but use as much or as little as you like. You don't want the mixture to get TOO thick so just add a little at a time where the cheese is concerned.

Coat one side of a chicken breast at a time with a little covering of the mayo mixture and then cover in bread crumbs. Flip and do the same, then repeat with the other chicken breast.

Put chicken breasts on a slightly greased (or buttered, or olive oiled, whatever you have on hand) pan. If you have a broiling pan, these are ideal so the bottom doesn't get soggy. You could also just use a wire rack on top of another pan, or any other contraption you can come up with. We don't need to be too technical with this one.

Bake at 350 for approximately 40 minutes until the chicken feels firm ( or "done"- just cut one open to check if you need to) and the bread crumbs are golden brown. I put them in for 15 and then flipped them over and left them in the rest of the time on the other side. You might want to turn the broiler on for 5 minutes or so towards the end just to make them a little bit more golden, but that's really just for visual appeal.

And TA-DA! Super moist on the inside and crunchy on the outside, this chicken is ready for you to eat! We had it with a serving of linguine with a homemade alfredo and then some lemon pepper sauteed broccoli and peppers, but you can serve it with just about anything: roasted potatoes, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, any other kind of pasta, pasta with red sauce for a "chicken parmesean" of sorts, rice and vegetables... whatever suits your tastes!

ENJOY... I sure did!

Denver in (Food) Pictures

I just returned to Chicago yesterday after what seems like an all-too-short trip to Denver. As usual, one of the highlights of the trip was the opportunity to try some great new restaurants. Here's a picture recap of some of the amazing meals of the trip from two of the restaurants we were able to check out, Panzano and The Berkshire (Both happen to place emphasis on sourcing locally).

Panzano

With contemporary Northern Italian cuisine embodying the Italian motto "Those who eat well, live well," downtown Denver's Panzano has been named among the city's top 5 restaurants and has a mouth-watering menu slightly outside of what you might expect at a typical Italian restaurant. Trying to pick just two of the entrees proved to be a challenge, but we ended up with the Carbonara a la Panzano with shrimp and a special featuring a rosemary cream sauce and house-made lamb sausage, finishing with the Tiramisu which utilizes champagne instead of rum for a delectable twist on this classic. (Not pictured is the FABULOUS grilled Caesar salad which involves a 10 second toss on the grill of the romaine for a slight smokey flavor.)

The Berkshire

This pork-starring restaurant in the Stapleton area serves an array of comfort food and traditional sandwiches with a little bit of extra pizazz. The Berkshire was yet another restaurant where we could have easily ordered half the menu. In a blue cheese craving I settled on the Bacon and Blue Cheese stuffed burger served on Ciabatta with the most amazing and perfectly crispy fries, and also had the opportunity to try a bite of the pulled pork sliders. The Berkshire not only serves lunch and dinner but also has a special brunch menu. Check it out for yourself on their website.

I'm looking forward to *hopefully* becoming a Denver resident in the next few months and in turn being able to explore the menus of both Panzano and the Berkshire a little more thoroughly and see what else the city has to offer.